Songs of Ice and Denial

by bamftastik

A series of short epilogues for those ASOIAF/GOT characters who have met their end, in which they either escape their cruel fates or find peace in the beyond. Because DENIAL.

1. The Father

He bounced the babe on his knee, his eyes roaming the great hall. It rang to the click-click-clack of wooden swords as two of the smaller boys chased each other around the table, fierce and breathless and laughing. He laughed with them. Men had counted themselves content with less. But he had never been most men.

He sat at the table's head, with eight chairs to either side. More than half of them were full now. His children were coming home.

Pretty Bella had been the last to arrive. Smiling, she brought a pitcher of wine to refill his cup. Her mother had been pretty too, had named her for the battle that had brought them together. The years since had been hard on the girl, the war harder. But then the war had brought her here.

Bella ruffled her sister's hair as she returned to her seat. Already the babe had a full head of black curls. He smoothed them back with a thick finger and the child cooed up at him, her tiny hand tugging at his beard. Strong, too. Her mother had named her Barra.

There were others, scattered across the kingdoms. He looked in on them from time to time. The girl in the Vale had sat on his knee once, had loved it when he lifted her high above his head. She was a woman grown now and that fondness for heights had grown with her. The Storm boy was nearing manhood, as proud and fierce as his father ever was. And the other boy, the blacksmith - he was a strong lad, one who knew the feel of a good hammer in his hand. Even now he traveled north with the wild little wolf girl. He wondered what his old friend would think of that.

Again, his eyes roamed the table. There was the pudgy boy from the Riverlands, the twins that he'd fathered on that serving girl at Casterly Rock. Three more boys and a girl had come together from King's Landing, a mismatched bunch but all with the same dark hair and the same uncomprehending fear in their eyes. A gift from his loving wife. It was some small consolation that when he looked around the hall, he didn't see any of those golden-haired shits among them.

He barked a laugh and the babe on his knee echoed him. He'd had little enough to do with any of them. He hadn't had the time. But now… now time was all he had. And when the time came, Robert Baratheon would be there to welcome his dead bastards home.